Time was when, like all the rest of us in the West, America in particular, I also used to wonder about resources.
Like everyone else engaged in the so-called Islamic work of one kind or another, I too used to mumble the usual formula: What can we accomplish without resources? And where will the resources come from?
And then it hit me. The reality of Hijrat.
It began to dawn on me how, God Almighty, when he was about to start the count down for a new era of Islam on earth, he did so by stripping the Muslims of Makkah practically of every "resource" in their possession and making them march into the wilderness toward Madinah more or less empty handed.
Everything they owned in Makkah -- their homes, their properties, their wealth, their native land -- they were forced to leave behind. They set out with nothing but God on their lips and the thought of a new life of freedom and faith on their mind.
It was then that the divine bell tolled and the Muslim calendar began to roll.
That is why they call it the Hijri Calendar! The first day of that calendar was the day when God took away from Muslims all the usual "resources" of this world and gave them in return the only thing that really mattered: his unfailing love.
Who but God himself could have said it so beautifully!
Wa Man Yatawakkal Alallahi Fa-huwa Hasbuh!
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